


instincts

by ObscureReference



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Head Injury, M/M, Mild Hemophobia, Pre-Time Skip, Romantic Friendship, Tenderness, Vague Route, magical healing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-01
Updated: 2019-09-01
Packaged: 2020-10-05 03:28:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,028
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20482106
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ObscureReference/pseuds/ObscureReference
Summary: Linhardt had woken up from a lot of naps in his life. Many of them had been unpleasant awakenings, whether due to the need to use the bathroom, a too dry mouth, or the unpleasant reminder that he was in the middle of class and the professor did not take too kindly to dozing. Among other things.But this, he noted with displeasure, head throbbing as he swam his way to consciousness, was by far one of the worst ways he had ever woken up.





	instincts

**Author's Note:**

> I'm back from Japan! And I stormed my way through the Golden Deer route of 3H and fell in love with all the characters. I never even recruited Linhardt and Caspar, but I'm in love with them too. I've read some of their supports, but the wiki is still a little sparse, so I'm still getting a feel for... basically everyone, lol. So this is a bit of a practice! I'll be writing more Fates fic now that I've got this out of my system, but maybe expect some more 3H fic sometime in the future too. I want to ride the hype train as far as it takes me.
> 
> Again, I'm still getting a feel for everyone, so take everyone's characterization with a grain of salt. Also, take any descriptions of head injuries and what they feel like with even more salt than that, haha.

Linhardt had woken up from a lot of naps in his life. Many of them had been unpleasant awakenings, whether due to the need to use the bathroom, a too dry mouth, or the unpleasant reminder that he was in the middle of class and the professor did not take too kindly to dozing. Among other things.

But this, he noted with displeasure, head throbbing as he swam his way to consciousness, was by far one of the worst ways he had ever woken up.

Perhaps not _the_ worst. Caspar had once pounced on him when they were both nine, and Linhardt had smashed their heads together when he jolted upright, which had resulted in Caspar losing a tooth and Linhardt paling at the sight of all that blood dripping out of his friend’s mouth. Caspar had smiled through the pain, delighted at having gotten rid of one of those teeth ahead of schedule. Linhardt’s stomach still churned a little at the memory.

His stomach was churning a lot now.

He didn’t bother to disguise his whimper of pain when he opened his eyes, squinting into the late afternoon sun. He shut them again immediately, head spinning. His temple throbbed.

Painfully, Linhardt tried to remember what had brought him here. Probably a battle, he surmised. The compact ground under his cheek felt nothing like his mattress at the monastery. Caspar would have carried him to the infirmary if training had gone _that_ badly. So he probably wasn’t anywhere familiar.

Speaking of which—

“Caspar?” Linhardt rasped, squeezing his eyes shut again. His throat was dry. A very large part of Linhardt wanted to fall back asleep; a dimmer, smarter part of himself said that was probably a bad idea. “Are you there?”

No voices, no footsteps. Not even the wind graced Linhardt with a reply.

He forced himself to open his eyes once more. Something sticky in his right eye made it difficult, but he managed. The temptation to fall back asleep was growing harder and harder to resist.

It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the light. Since he was laying on his stomach, it was thankfully rather easy to put his hands under himself and begin to lift his head. Unfortunately, however, the sharp jolt of pain that shot through his skull when he began to move put a stop to that rather quickly. He flopped back onto the grass with another groan.

So movement was bad. Noted.

How long had he been laying here again? The concept of time had never been a pleasant one to Linhardt, and it slipped through his fingers like a spirit now.

Everything was green, he finally registered, grass poking him in the cheek for some undetermined amount of time. Green foliage, green grass, green moss lining the bark of the trees surrounding him.

Everything, that was, except for the dried patch of red and brown grass he’d found himself practically face-down in.

Linhardt blinked at the strange patch of grass. His temple throbbed.

“Ah,” he said smartly.

He was looking at blood. His own blood, if the pain in his head was anything to go by. Linhardt had sustained a head injury. Probably a semi-serious one, given it had taken him this long to put that together. He wasn’t thinking clearly.

That was a _lot_ of blood, he thought. He was practically laying in it. It wasn’t all fresh either.

How long had he—

It had probably run down the side of his face, he thought. So that same blood he was staring at was also all over Linhardt’s face too. Which did explain the vague itchiness on his cheek.

The nausea in his stomach worsened as the thought. He nearly heaved right there.

Somehow, he kept it together. Barely.

If Linhardt had any doubts about his having a concussion before, they were gone now. He detested the sight of blood on the best of days. Now, combined with the headache and constant nausea, it was nigh unbearable.

Linhardt forced himself to look away from the blood. Forced himself to stop thinking about it, stop mentally categorizing every detail he didn’t want to recall anyway. This time, when he pushed himself up, he didn’t let the pain keep him down.

He used the trunk of the nearest tree to support himself when he sat upright. Then he stole another few minutes to gather his bearings. It was difficult to concentrate on much of anything.

In the time he’d already taken to collect himself, there still had been no footsteps. Nobody called his name or wandered by. Where were they?

Eventually, Linhardt found the strength to stand up. It took some effort, and by the time he made it to his own two feet, he wanted to slide down to the forest floor again. He felt more tired than any of his training sessions with the professor had ever left him.

Because of a battle, he wondered, or was his head more severely injured than he thought?

He looked around. There was no indication of where his classmates might have gone or why they might have vanished. It looked to be late afternoon now, but soon the sun would begin to dip in the sky. Finding the others was a top priority. Preferably Linhardt would also find a river so he could wash himself up too. Infected headwounds were the worst kind.

He grimaced. The list of things he had to do only grew longer the more he focused. It would have been easier to just lay down and wait for somebody else to find him so they could do the hard work for him.

But there was no guarantee of that happening anytime soon, and Linhardt wasn’t so lazy that he’d choose to die rather than help himself. He had some sense of self preservation, after all.

So he gathered the strength to stand, picked a direction that looked vaguely familiar, and began walking.

Hobbling, really. He was forced to scramble for the nearest tree trunk every time his vision swam or he stumbled over a log he didn’t see before he went tripping over it. Linhardt had barely made it five yards before he groaned in pain again, wishing he could sit down for a short break without the fear of not being able to stand up again nipping at him.

It was unfortunate healers could not perform faith magic on themselves. Granted, Linhardt wasn’t sure he trusted himself enough to perform any sort of magic in this state—especially not to his own head injury. But still.

Not for the first time, he also wished Caspar were there. He imagined Caspar’s loud voice edging him onward. That alone made Linhardt put one foot in front of the other. Caspar would be disappointed if he fell into a coma without even fighting.

But Caspar wasn’t there, and Linhardt was alone. So—head swimming and legs increasingly unsteady—he walked.

The memory of what had happened slipped back to him in fragments as he made his way through the trees. Linhardt slowed as the memories trickled by.

There had been a mission. Something about bandits and villagers. Linhardt remembered he had tuned the details out after a while because it had all seemed boring and routine. He’d trusted the others to listen to do what they needed while he supported them from behind. They’d made camp outside the bandit’s suspected hideout, and then…

It got fuzzier from there. Linhardt remembered someone—possibly the professor but maybe not—commenting about the forest. About being careful because the foliage made it hard to see their enemies. He remembered following the others into the trees. Reluctantly, because the professor hadn’t seemed any happier about the lack of visibility than he had.

His memory came in flashes then.

A flap of feathered wings overhead—Marianne? A flash of Bernadette’s arrows; the jangle of Sylvain’s armor. The others, scattered but never too far away. Linhardt had thrown healing spells whenever he’d caught sight of them, but it had grown increasingly difficult the deeper they wandered into the woods. Bandits weaved between the trees. Had the professor called for them? Had he heard?

Caspar, a confident, reckless blur of blue always in the corner of Linhardt’s eye. Physic after physic thrown to keep Caspar on his feet. Annoyance that he was rushing ahead again.

Green, green, green.

“Caspar!” he’d called out, exasperated. Wishing they were back in the tents already. Not paying attention.

No. Paying too much attention to Caspar and too little to himself.

A blow to the head like a gauntlet or butt of an axe. Pain. Darkness.

And now, here he was. Stumbling through the woods on his own.

Hadn’t they looked for him? He wondered. Caspar would have looked for sure, and he couldn’t imagine the professor just leaving him behind either, even if they believed him to be dead. So had they failed to find his body? Or had they been overrun and forced to retreat? Or—

Linhardt’s stomach twisted. This time it wasn’t only because of the head injury.

He stumbled over yet another root and promptly hit the forest floor, jaw snapping shut painfully as his chin knocked against the dirt. Linhardt gasped, head positively pounding in agony. Foolishly, instinctively, he moved to touch his head. All that served to do was cause yet another wave of pain coursing through his skull.

There was new wetness on his palm from where he’d touched his head too. It felt sticky. Linhardt clenched his fist and squeezed his eyes shut so he didn’t have to look.

He had never prided himself on his perseverance. Linhardt could stay up as long as he needed when he was caught up in researching this or that, but he only managed because he knew he could get away with sleeping through most mornings. He flitted from topic to topic whenever the appeal began to wane, not because he had ever found one singular focus and stuck with it. He reserved working up a sweat for people who liked that sort of thing—for people like Caspar and Felix, who threw themselves into training with a single-minded focus Linhardt would only ever know in fleeting bursts of interest.

Linhardt was too prone to pessimism and disinterest to really push himself—to be anything other than what he was.

He could still hear Caspar’s voice in his head after Linhardt commented about how he savored the meals they had together, not knowing which would be their last.

“I get what you’re saying, but you shouldn’t be so grim!” Caspar waved a strip of meat in his hand. He’d had sauce on his chin. “Let’s survive so we can keep eating together!”

“Easier said than done,” Linhardt had mumbled into his plate. Even then, despite the annoying uproar of the dining hall, he’d been drowsy.

Linhardt wanted to live, if only so he could chastise Caspar for chewing with his mouth open like he always did. But it didn’t seem like that option was on the table anymore.

No. Linhardt was pessimistic, but he wasn’t stupid. He wouldn’t die here. Not now. A concussion alone wouldn’t be enough to kill him.

In a few days, when the wound began to fester and the confusion left him unable to forage for suitable food or drink, however…

He huffed and rolled onto his back, not bothering to open his eyes. His head still hurt, but some of the pain had ebbed while Linhardt had been caught up in his own head. It was a dull sort of throb now. The kind that could easily lull a concussed man into a dangerous sleep. His eyelids had grown so heavy he wasn’t sure he could open them again.

“Damn,” Linhardt sighed, readying himself to slip into a coma or die of exposure—whichever came first. “What… was the point of any of this?”

Fighting had always seemed so…

“Linhardt?”

Linhardt clawed at the darkness in his head. His eyes shot open, heart skipping a beat.

“Caspar?”

But it wasn’t Caspar at all. Purple hair and tanned skin swam in front of Linhardt’s vision; after a moment, the figure hovering over him solidified into Petra.

Petra looked rather concerned, he noted. It took a another beat for Linhardt to remember why that might have been.

“Linhardt!” Petra said again, kneeling next to him. “You have so much blood! Are you being injured?”

Linhardt squinted at her. When had the sun dipped so low?

“Do not be moving,” Petra ordered. She squeezed his shoulder and looked at him seriously. “I am feeling much relief to have found you. I am being the camp scout. We are close, so I will be returning quickly.”

“Oh, don’t mind me,” Linhardt said. Relief coursed through his chest so rapidly, it was surely audible in every word. “Just…”

But Petra was already up and sprinting off somewhere with movements Linhardt didn’t bother to track. He let his eyes fall shut again when he could no longer hear the rustle of her footsteps, trusting her to return. Petra was as reliable as they came.

It felt like not two seconds had passed before he heard the rustle of leaves again. Two—no, three—sets of footsteps swiftly approached his position. One person was running ahead of the other two.

Linhardt opened his eyes.

“Caspar!” Mercedes called out somewhere in the distance. “Please don’t run ahead!”

Caspar didn’t stop. He crashed through the underbrush and would have toppled right over Linhardt if not for the way he stumbled to a stop at the last second. His eyes were large and his mouth comically agape as he spotted Linhardt.

Caspar without something to say was a rare sight indeed, Linhardt thought.

“Hello, Caspar,” he said tiredly from his place on the ground. He swallowed dryly.

Caspar’s chest jerked like he’d been hit. Linhardt frowned. But before he could say anything about it, Caspar was on his knees and in Linhardt’s face, even more obtrusively than Petra had been before him.

“Linhardt!” Caspar said. Practically shouted, of course. Linhardt grimaced. “Jeez, you scared us! I thought I’d never—” He shut his mouth too quickly and shook his head. “You look awful! Does that hurt? Why won’t you say anything?”

“Don’t,” Linhardt hissed, leaning away when Caspar reached up to touch his forehead.

He barely managed to move at all, but Caspar jerked his hand back as if he’d been burned. The excitement on his face dropped into something more—solemn, Linhardt thought hazily, as Caspar pulled his arm back to his side.

“Yeah, sorry.” Caspar’s eyes scanned Linhardt’s face. His voice had softened to a normal volume. “I bet that hurts, huh?”

It was difficult not to squirm under the weight of Caspar’s gaze. Caspar’s eyes scanned his face with an intensity Linhardt had seen before but never directed at himself. Or had Linhardt just never noticed before?

It was probably just the concussion talking, Linhardt thought.

Luckily, Caspar was doing all the speaking at the moment.

“Did you get here all by yourself? Where have you _been_?” Caspar’s looked so— “We looked _everywhere_ for you. I yelled your name over and over, and you never…”

Linhardt licked his lips and opened his mouth to reply with… something smart, probably.

“Linhardt!”

“Caspar!”

Mercedes and Petra had finally caught up to them. The women burst through the bushes—not with the same single-minded intensity Caspar had but certainly with resolve. Linhardt didn’t have the energy to turn his head, but he saw Mercedes zero in on him out of his periphery anyway.

“Don’t touch the patient!” Mercedes said. For a woman with such a soft voice, she could be very stern when she wanted to be. Caspar straightened up and scooted back like he’d been scolded by his own mother.

Petra dutifully took point by Mercedes’s side as the Mercedes knelt opposite Caspar, a determined look on her face.

“Must we be carrying him back to camp?” Petra asked. “Caspar and I could do this, I believe.”

Mercedes shook her head while gently examining Linhardt’s wound. “Not yet. I don’t want to move him too much. Who knows how much damage he’s done to himself already?”

“I’m right here,” Linhardt droned. But he knew this was out of his hands now. It was quite the relief.

Caspar squeezed Linhardt’s bony hand between his calloused one. Linhardt glanced at their tangled fingers, then at the strange look on Caspar’s face, but said nothing.

It was a struggle not to squirm as Mercedes poked and prodded at his tender forehead. She was only doing her job, he knew, no matter how unpleasant it was to be the one under medical scrutiny for once. Though Mercedes’s cool fingers against his warm face felt surprisingly nice too. What Linhardt wouldn’t have given for a real nap by now. Preferably with less lumpy bark under his head.

After a few seconds of inspection, Caspar squeezed his hand again, so tight it actually hurt. Linhardt wrinkled his nose as he glanced Caspar’s way.

“It’s fine,” he muttered. He wasn’t angry, even when Caspar only loosened his grip a marginal amount. Linhardt was just so very, very tired.

Caspar looked like he had something to say again, but then Mercedes murmured, “Hold still,” so Caspar reluctantly settled back down.

Linhardt felt a familiar pulse of energy settle over his body, feather-light yet distinctly present. The pain in his head instantly began to fade. He went practically limp with relief as the headache that had been pounding behind his eyes since he’d first awoken suddenly drew back. The taste of mint—Mercedes’s magical thumbprint—rose on the back of Linhardt’s tongue.

Petra had wet a handkerchief with her waterskin without his noticing. She dragged the wet cloth over his eye, presumably wiping away the worst of the blood there. When she lifted the cloth, Linhardt saw how pink the handkerchief had turned and averted his eyes.

“Linhardt?” Caspar said loudly. “You still with us, buddy?”

He sounded distinctly nervous. Caspar dug his thumb into the back of Linhardt’s hand painfully.

Linhardt grunted, only just realizing his eyes had fallen shut again. “Yeah. Thanks, Petra.”

"You are welcome."

“He’s exhausted,” Mercedes said from the darkness above him. “But I’m afraid we need to get back to camp for some proper rest. Linhardt, can you stand?”

Petra said, “Perhaps we could be—”

“I can carry him!” Caspar volunteered.

“Absolutely not,” Linhardt said. It was hard to work up the energy to speak—harder than before Mercedes had cast Restore. Even though he was certainly in less pain now, the healing had sapped the last of his energy.

He made a reluctant effort to raise his voice when he continued, “I refuse to be carried by Caspar. Please put that in my medical file, Mercedes.”

“You think I can’t carry you?” Caspar asked incredulously.

“No, I’m sure you could.” Linhardt forced his eyes open again and fixed them on Caspar, who, if he had been born a bird, would have puffed out his feathers. “But you and I have a distinct difference in height, and I’ve seen the way you handle potato sacks when it’s your turn for kitchen duty. Either my legs will drag the whole way or you’ll hit my head on every branch before we even get there.”

“Wha—Are you talking about height advantage stuff again? I told you, that doesn’t matter! This isn’t even a fight! You weigh as much as a wet paper bag, so let’s just—"

“This is not the time for fighting,” Petra said, frowning in Linhardt’s periphery.

Linhardt said, “Caspar, don’t you think I’ve had enough injuries for one day?”

“Why are you so certain I’d drop you?” Caspar pulled at Linhardt’s arm none too gently. He was strong. Reluctantly, Linhardt began to stumble to his knees—emphasis on _stumble_. “Don’t be a wimp! Just let me carry you back like a good friend!”

“No, thank you.”

“Boys,” Mercedes said with a distinct tone.

Linhardt and Caspar closed their mouths. They looked at Mercedes. Caspar’s fingers were distinctly digging into the meat of Linhardt’s arm.

Mercedes looked between the two of them. “Linhardt, do you think you could actually make it back to camp by yourself? It would only be about a ten-minute walk from here.”

Linhardt felt _tired_, but he’d functioned at “tired” for most of his life. He could manage.

“I—”

He pushed himself to his feet and collapsed almost immediately. Petra caught his shoulders, and Caspar was at his side in an instant, slipping an arm around Linhardt’s waist and pulling Linhardt’s free arm around his own shoulders.

Petra and Caspar were both considerably shorter than Linhardt, and the way they caught him likely looked comical from Mercedes’s perspective. Linhardt had never cared much for how others saw him before, however, and he was too grateful that he hadn’t fallen fast-first into the dirt again to care now.

“Well,” Linhardt said after a beat where the three of them stood there—Caspar so very close and Petra gently but firmly pushing at Linhardt’s chest to keep him upright again. “It appears I may need some assistance after all.”

Looking vaguely worried, Mercedes nodded. At his side, Linhardt felt Caspar adjust his grip.

“I can do it,” Caspar said to Petra seriously.

Petra nodded and stepped back, leaving Caspar supporting most of Linhardt’s weight on his own. With one of Caspar’s arms around him and Linhardt’s arm slung over his shoulders, Linhardt could stand on his own two feet—if only barely. Still, he tried not to put too much of his weight on Caspar.

Caspar must have noticed, however, because he looked up at Linhardt and said, “You can lean on me. I won’t break.”

“I know,” Linhardt said.

Caspar sent Linhardt the kind of look that said he wasn’t sure if Linhardt was lying or not. But he didn’t say anything aloud, so Linhardt said nothing too.

“Let us make haste,” Petra said. She took the lead guiding them back.

It took a moment of practice to get the rhythm right, but after a few seconds Linhardt and Caspar managed to walk without stumbling over each other. The height difference between himself and Caspar truly did make it a little more uncomfortable to walk than if Mercedes had been helping him, Linhardt thought. She was closest to his height out of all of them.

But Mercedes wasn’t familiar like Caspar was. Neither was Petra, who matched Caspar in height anyway. Linhardt by far preferred to keep Caspar by his side rather than anyone else.

“Come on,” Caspar muttered after they rounded their first bend, Mercedes and Petra hovering nearby. “We’ll be there soon. Don’t worry.”

His voice had taken on a rather subdued, un-Caspar like tone. So much so that Linhardt wasn’t sure he was meant to hear it. The easier option was to pretend he hadn’t, so that’s what he did. He focused on how warm Caspar felt under his arm instead.

Walking back to camp took more effort than Linhardt liked. His limbs dragged with every step. But walking with Caspar was a lot easier than walking by himself, and not just because the dissipation of his headache had finally allowed Linhardt to focus on his surroundings for more than two seconds at a time. Exhaustion had replaced most of the aches and pains, but with Caspar guiding him with every step, Linhardt wasn’t worried about falling anymore. Caspar would catch him if he fell.

So actually, walking back to camp wasn’t hard at all, he realized. Linhardt’s eyelids even began to droop as he became more comfortable leaning on Caspar.

“Hey, hey! Don’t fall asleep on me yet!”

Linhardt opened his eyes, frowning at Caspar’s tone. They were both still upright despite the brambles and roots in their path, so he didn’t see what the problem was.

“I can walk and doze at the same time,” Linhardt protested weakly. Mercedes and Petra had paused some ways ahead so Caspar and Linhardt could catch up. They _had_ fallen a ways behind, Linhardt noted. Still, his point remained.

“How about I just carry you after all?” Caspar suggested. “Think of it like weight training!”

“Not happening.”

Caspar made a disgruntled sound as they stepped over a particularly tricky root. “Then keep your eyes open until we get back to camp. We’re almost there.”

Linhardt hummed. “I’m sure you can guide me even with my eyes closed.”

“Of course! But—”

To Mercedes, like she was delivering some kind of observation, Petra said, “Caspar is loud even when he is being… No, when he is worried.”

Linhardt blinked.

He looked down, but Caspar was determinedly focused on keeping them moving forward. Linhardt moved with him on autopilot.

The girls began to walk ahead of them again as Caspar and Linhardt caught up.

“He is,” Mercedes agreed. “But that’s natural. If something happened to Annie, I don’t know what I’d do with myself either.”

“But Mercedes is never being loud.”

“Oh, I suppose not. But still…”

Linhardt tuned out of their conversation.

“You were worried about me?” he asked Caspar.

He knew it was a stupid question even as it left his mouth. Still, he couldn’t help himself.

Caspar looked up at Linhardt with a grimace and said, “Did Mercedes not heal you well enough? Of course I was worried about you! You’ve been gone for hours, Linhardt.”

“Oh,” Linhardt said dumbly.

Of course, hearing the words from Caspar’s mouth, they made sense. Caspar had said something along those lines already, hadn’t he? They simply hadn’t sunken in before.

"Sorry," he said after an awkward beat.

Mercedes’s healing had helped, but Linhardt definitely needed a good nap to reorient his rattled brain.

If it had been Caspar who had disappeared without a word instead of himself—

Linhardt didn’t want to think about that. 

Pulling Linhardt along as he spoke, Caspar said, “I mean, we didn’t even know what happened to you! The battle was over, and nobody could find you. One minute, you were right behind me! Then I turned around, and you were just. _Gone_.”

“Caspar…”

He didn’t know what to say.

Caspar must have felt the tension in the air because he cleared his throat and looked ahead. “Anyway, it’s fine now. We’re almost there.”

Linhardt followed his line of sight. “You’ve been saying that for a while now.”

“Because we are!”

It was true. Somehow, Linhardt kept his eyes open, and suddenly they were stepping into a familiar circle of tents.

It looked like someone had just started building the campfire when they arrived. Wood had been piled between a circle of stones, even if it hadn’t been lit yet. Several people—Lysithea, Marianne, and the professor among them—were lingering around the edges of camp, clearly waiting for their return.

Mercedes, Petra, and Caspar all greeted the professor loudly once they were in sight. The others looked eager with their questions, and Linhardt grimaced at the thought of being overrun when he was already dead on his feet. As if sensing his reluctance, Caspar tightened his hold on Linhardt’s waist.

Luckily, Mercedes and Petra stepped forward to meet the professor, which allowed Linhardt and Caspar to hang back. The other students, some looking more nosy than concerned, didn’t immediately approach.

After a quick exchange with Mercedes, the professor took in Linhardt and Caspar, who had thankfully kept him standing upright even though sitting on the ground was a perfectly acceptable alternative now.

“Are you feeling alright?” Professor Byleth asked. Their face was blank as ever, but a hint of something Linhardt had come to label as concern lingered in their words.

Linhardt was practically swaying on his feet by this point. He was only upright thanks to Caspar. “I’m alive, if that’s what you mean. Mercedes has healed the worst of the damage.”

Professor Byleth nodded. “But you must be exhausted. You still need rest.”

“If you don’t mind,” Linhardt said gratefully.

“Caspar, would you mind seeing Linhardt back to your tent?”

“On it, professor!”

Professor Byleth’s gaze shifted from Caspar back to Linhardt. “I’d like a report of what happened in the morning. Get some rest for now.”

Linhardt nodded. “Thank you, professor.”

Caspar lead him around the outskirts of camp and back to the tent they had taken to sharing. Lysithea watched him go curiously, and Marianne looked like she was hesitantly trying to catch his eye. Other than Caspar and the professor, they were the two Linhardt might have said he was closest to. Mostly because of his research, of course. Linhardt shrugged at them. They’d find him later if they really had questions.

“Here we are!” Caspar announced as he pushed the tent flap aside and helped Linhardt settle on top of his sleeping back. “You probably want to sleep, right? Need anything?”

“Just a ten-hour nap,” Linhardt said, laying face-first against against his flimsy pillow. His eyes had fallen shut the moment his knees hit the sleeping bag. He didn’t even bother wrapping himself up in the thin blanket. Still, he made an effort to speak. “Thank you, Caspar. I couldn’t have made it back without you. Literally.”

Caspar didn’t sit. He chucked, however—not his usual laugh. Again, he sounded more subdued than usual. “What else are friends for?”

Linhardt grunted into his pillow. Already, the sweet release of sleep was sucking him in. Hopefully, when he woke up again, he’d be less lightheaded.

“Sleep tight,” Caspar said.

Linhardt grunted again.

A few beats passed. Outside, the rustle of the other students moving about was audible but distant. Linhardt waited for the sounds of Caspar leaving as well, but none came.

If Caspar wanted to stay, he was welcome to do so, Linhardt thought dully. It was his tent too.

He was content to fall asleep like that when Caspar spoke up again.

“Hey, Linhardt?” It took a second for Linhardt to register Caspar’s voice, filtered through the fog of sleep and unfamiliar hesitance as it was. “Are you… really feeling okay?”

Linhardt breathed in heavily against the pillow. He’d nearly fallen asleep.

“I will be as soon as I get some rest,” he mumbled.

Caspar fell quiet at that. Another beat passed, and Linhardt slowly began to relax into his pillow once more.

He really, _really_ could have used some sleep.

But Caspar wasn’t leaving, and while Linhardt had easily dozed off with worse eyes on him than Caspar’s, a part of him felt guilty ignoring his friend when something was clearly bothering him. He was quiet, too, and that wasn’t at all Caspar’s normal behavior.

So Linhardt sucked it up and forced his heavy eyes open. He didn’t bother lifting his head, however. Mercedes’s healing had taken too much out of him to bother with that now.

Cheek smushed against a pillow so flat he might as well have not used it at all, Linhardt took in the miserable expression on Caspar’s face. “Is my health really what you’re worried about?”

“Yeah!” Caspar said, looking relieved Linhardt hadn’t ignored him. He plopped down next to Linhardt. “You should have seen yourself back there! Petra said you were alive, but you were laying on the ground with blood all on your face and in your hair…” Caspar paused to give Linhardt a curious look. “Actually, you still look pretty bad now.”

Oh, right. Thanks to Petra, his eye wasn’t sticky anymore, but Linhardt hadn’t actually washed any of the other blood or dirt off yet. He probably looked quite the mess. No doubt his pillow would be filthy in the morning as well.

He was too tired to get up and find a washcloth, but his stomach still churned with the knowledge there was real _blood_ in his hair. It had probably made his hair all matted and gunky and—_ugh_. Linhardt refused to reach up and feel for it.

“Less blood talk please,” he said, voice strained.

Caspar, knowing Linhardt’s distaste for the stuff, winced in sympathy. “Sorry.”

“It’s fine.” He would have waved a dismissive hand if he’d had the energy. “But that can’t be all you’re worried about.”

Caspar pulled his legs up to his chest and wrapped his arms around them. He looked at Linhardt, head resting on top of his knees. He looked…

Linhardt couldn’t put his finger on it. Caspar looked… something. Something that made Linhardt’s chest tighten uncomfortably.

“How do you know?” Caspar asked. “You really had me worried back there, Linhardt. I thought you might have…”

“But I’m not,” Linhardt said. “And I’ve known you since we were six. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out when something more is bothering you.”

Caspar pressed his lips together and looked at the tent floor. Then he lifted his head, looking determined.

“You’re right and you’re wrong,” he said. “Because I am worried about you. I should have been watching your back today and I wasn’t, and you almost died because of it.”

Linhardt pushed himself up on his elbows. “What are you talking about?”

“Me!” Caspar threw up his arms. “You were right behind me, and then you weren’t! You went down, and nobody could find you because _I_ wasn’t paying attention! Because—” His voice caught, then softened with audible regret. “Because I was too reckless.”

“Who told you that?” Linhardt asked, agitated on Caspar’s behalf.

Caspar’s mouth twisted. “Nobody had to. I know my own flaws.”

Linhardt hesitated, unsure of what to say to comfort Caspar.

In that gap, Caspar continued, “I’m the one who ran ahead—who should have been looking out for you—and I wasn’t. It’s my fault you got hurt. That you almost…”

“Okay, time to stop.” Linhardt would have shaken his head if he wasn’t afraid it would make him dizzy. “Caspar, I use magic. My whole purpose on the battlefield is to support people on the front lines—brawlers like you especially. And I can defend myself while I’m at it. _I’m_ the support, not you. I’m meant to watch your back, not the other way around.”

“Everyone is supposed to look out for each other,” Caspar protested. “I know you can fight, but healers are vulnerable. Professor Byleth always says so. The enemies target them in particular so our allies as a whole are weakened. And I’m stronger than you, so—”

“Need I remind you that I have longer limbs?”

Caspar groaned. “Not this again. Be serious!”

Linhardt sighed.

“I am serious,” he said. “And seriously, it’s not your fault. Yes, you run ahead in battle a lot. Yes, you're reckless. But I know that. Everyone knows that. I’m the one who let myself fall into a bad position. And you weren’t the only one on the battlefield, you know.”

Caspar wrinkled his nose. “Yeah, but—”

“There was…” Linhardt wracked his brain. “Bernadetta was firing off her arrows somewhere to my right before I was hit. Sylvain was talking too much, as usual. I could hear him on my left. I could _see_ him getting off his horse. Marianne was overhead on her Pegasus and…” Linhardt laid the left side of his head—the uninjured side, not the newly healed one—against his forearm. “Actually, naming everyone is boring, so I won’t continue. But you get my point.”

“So you’re right,” Linhardt continued. “It’s everyone’s job to look out for each other on the battlefield. But that means when something happens, the blame doesn’t rest solely on you.”

Caspar threw his head back and groaned loudly. “But I feel like it does! When I think about it, I know you’re right, but I still feel like I should have done more. Like it’s on me to make sure you’re alright.”

“But you shouldn’t,” Linhardt said, turning onto his side. “Imagine it was Ferdinand who had gotten hurt instead. He was next to you today, right? Would you feel this bad if it had been him who had been gone for a few hours?”

“Probably not,” Caspar said reluctantly.

Linhardt nodded into his forearm. “And if it had been Bernadetta? She was behind you too.”

Caspar hesitated. “Bernadetta’s pretty small and scared all the time, so I probably would have felt a little bad,” he allowed. “But not like this, I think.”

“And what about—”

“No,” Caspar said, cutting him off. “I get it, okay? But whoever you’re about to say, no. I probably wouldn’t feel like this if it were anyone else.”

Linhardt suspected knew the answer, but he asked anyway. “Then why do you feel bad that it’s me?”

“Because you’re Linhardt!” Caspar announced, sending Linhardt a certified _Look_. “Because I’ve known you for forever and we’re supposed to look out for each other, and I—” He swallowed his words and looked away, the tips of his ears growing red. “If I lost you, I…” He shook his head. “I thought I lost you.”

Caspar’s voice had fallen to a near whisper at the end. Linhardt stared.

“You don’t even like fighting,” Caspar said regretfully, clenching his fists. “Not like I do. You don’t even want to be here, and you still almost…”

“Caspar,” Linhardt said. “You didn’t lose me.”

Rather than answer, Caspar flipped onto to his knees and flopped stomach-down next to Linhardt. He squirmed until they were face to face. This close, Linhardt could clearly see the blue-gray of Caspar’s eyes—a color he’d memorized since childhood.

“You look like a ghost,” Caspar breathed.

Like a bloody ghost. Linhardt wished he had cleaned himself up after all.

He grabbed Caspar’s hand and pressed Caspar’s palm against his chest. Even through the padding of his mage’s uniform, he hoped Caspar could feel his heart thumping away behind his ribs. Linhardt was certainly aware of it himself.

“But I’m not a ghost,” Linhardt said. “You still have me, Caspar.”

“…Yeah,” Caspar said after a beat. “I know.”

“You still have me,” Linhardt repeated seriously. “I haven’t left you yet, so stop thinking so hard about what-ifs. That’s my job.”

He squeezed Caspar’s hand reassuringly.

Linhardt didn’t believe nothing bad would ever happen to either of them, so he didn't comfort Caspar like that. The scent of enemy and allied blood alike haunted the hours between waking and sleeping more than he ever wanted to say. There was nothing on earth Linhardt despised more than fighting. But he would always follow Caspar into battle, healing spells on the tips of his fingers, if it meant Caspar had a greater chance of coming out on the other side untroubled and unscathed. He knew the opposite was true as well.

He and Caspar had each other, for better or for worse.

Caspar pressed his lips together. “I get what you’re saying, but I still can’t help thinking I should have been there for you today.”

“You must have taken out a dozen bandits before they ever got close to me,” Linhardt countered. “Everything worked out just fine in the end, didn’t it? So take your mind out of the past and keep it here in the moment. With me.”

He added the last two words on a whim. Just saying them made Linhardt’s face heat up, but Caspar didn’t tease him. He stared at Linhardt, lips parted in surprise, before visibly relaxing.

Caspar huffed, part exasperation and part laughter. The corners of Linhardt’s lips lifted with pleasure at the sound.

“That’s more like it,” Linhardt said.

“Okay, okay,” Caspar said, softening. “You win. I’ll leave the bulk of the thinking up to you from now on. I’m better off listening to my instincts anyway.”

Linhardt swallowed. “That, I can agree with.”

Their faces were so close Caspar’s breath ghosted Linhardt’s cheeks. Their noses nearly brushed. Caspar had always been at Linhardt’s side but never before like this. The heat of him made Linhardt want to do something foolish.

They were quiet for a moment, content with simply breathing the same air, occupying the same space. Linhardt could have lain there forever. _Wanted_ to lay there with Caspar forever, the way he’d always wanted. No training, no battles, no inheritance or lack thereof. Just Linhardt and Caspar and how they had always meant to be, with no outside world there to disturb them. Even the faraway noises of camp had faded altogether.

“What are your instincts telling you to do now?” he asked.

Caspar’s eyes flitted to Linhardt’s mouth and back up. “It’s… you know…”

“Show me,” Linhardt said. Caspar communicated better with action than words.

It wasn’t a surprise when Caspar kissed him.

The real surprise came from _how_ Caspar kissed him. It was a simple press of lips against lips. Chaste. Not the first word Linhardt would have ever applied to Caspar and his chapped lips but a word he found himself pleasantly startled by now.

Linhardt pressed back.

Caspar’s breath hitched when he pulled away, and Linhardt, suddenly very warm, wondered if he felt the way Linhardt’s heart had jumped in his chest.

“Caspar,” Linhardt said softly when Caspar didn’t lean in a second time. His brain had short-circuited, so he simply repeated himself. “Caspar.”

Caspar pressed his forehead against Linhardt’s and breathed out slowly. He flexed his fingers against Linhardt’s chest. “Linhardt.”

Linhardt slipped his fingers between Caspar’s own. He held Caspar’s hand from behind, his palm pressed against the back of Caspar’s hand. Caspar held both Linhardt’s shirt and his fingers.

“You really are dirty,” Caspar said, looking at Linhardt’s face. He licked his lips.

Linhardt breathed out. “Blame that on the man who hit me.”

Caspar nodded to himself. “You know what? That sounds good to me.”

“Good.” Linhardt closed his eyes. “And that ten-hour nap sounds good to me to me right now, so if you don’t mind…”

Caspar huffed another amused laugh and pressed his mouth to Linhardt’s forehead as Linhardt closed his eyes.

“Fine,” he said, slinging his arm across Linhardt’s chest like the world’s most comforting blanket. “Get some sleep. I’ll be here when you wake up.”

“I know,” Linhardt said tiredly.

And Caspar was.

**Author's Note:**

> The height advantage comments and the comment about Linhardt savoring meals because he doesn't know which will be their last (and Caspar's reply) come directly from the game. Linhardt's "What was the point of this" also comes from the game and how he comments several times that he doesn't see a point to fighting to the death for someone else's ideals. His disgust of blood comes from the game too. Probably some other stuff came from game dialogue too, but I forget what else.
> 
> I made most of Petra's grammatical mistakes involve grammar tense, since that's how they are in-game. I hope it sounded believable. I tried to take some experience from my own struggles of learning another language, but I'm sure there are parts I could improve in. Mostly, I try to mimic how she's written in-game.
> 
> Feel free to leave a comment below or hit me up on my [tumblr!](http://someobscurereference.tumblr.com/) I get a lot of FE meta and fic related asks there, so feel free to browse through my "asks" or "fe14" or "fe16" tags for some extra stuff from me and your fellow readers that you may not see over here. Or send in a question of your own if you had one! Thanks for reading!


End file.
